AT + December = COLD!

This past weekend, the guys and I made a long overdue trip into the blustery North Georgia Mountains to, well, attempt (more on this later) to finish the first leg of the Appalachian Trail that we have not yet completed. Our "regular" crew is myself, Daniel, George, Cooper, and Jarrott. Jarrott couldn't make this trip due to an injured knee, so we brought Daniel's brother Michael and cousin Zach with us. With two weekend trips, one in April of 2007, the other in April of 2008, we have managed to traverse the AT in Georgia from Cooper Gap (#6 on the map) to Unicoi Gap (#20 on the map). Due to too many uncooperative schedules, we sadly were not able to organize our annual April trip in 2009. We finally made it happen the first week in December, hence the "long overdue" description above.

The biggest challenge to planning these trips is figuring out how, when, and where we can park our trucks. Unless you want to hike half the distance that can be covered in a weekend due to turning around and hiking back to our vehicles, these trips have to included the dreaded "Drop". Driving two trucks to the start of the hike, dropping everybody and their gear here to wait while the two drivers drive one truck to the end of the hike, drop it off, and then drive back. When the hike is over, the two drivers take the truck that was left at the end, and go back to retrieve the truck that was left at the start. I know, how many miles can one hike in a weekend, and how can that be such a huge problem when dropping and retrieving vehicles? Well, the mileage isn't the problem. To find almost all AT trailheads involves driving very slowly on minimally maintained forest service roads. So 20 miles one way turns into an hour or more of driving, that is, if there is an easy route to get from one end to the other. So this leaves the droppees sitting for at least two hours while the drop is made, then again when the droppers make the retrieval. Both situations, droppee and dropper, are no fun at all when you are excited and ready to be on the trail or exhausted and ready to be home.

Anyway, we decided to make a mini-drop this time, only 30 minutes of total wait time, starting at Cooper Gap (#6 again), this time heading southward to Springer Mountain (the little x between #2 and #3) then back to Hightower Gap (#5) to complete the section we have not done. This however did not happen. Due to a very late start on Friday night Saturday morning, we finally hit the trail at 12:30 am, and of course, we didn't get as far as we had planned for our night hike. Due to another late start on Saturday morning afternoon, we again didn't cover nearly as much distance as we had planned. Beyond the late starts, hiking up and down mountains in the cold is a much slower process than normal anyway. You have to move at a slower pace so that you won't sweat. Sweat and cold do not mix well at all.

Despite the fact that we didn't finish this leg of the trail, a great time was had by all. Here are some pictures from the adventure. I've been messing around with photoshop for years creating graphics and such, but finally decided to start teaching myself how to actually edit some photos. So some of the pictures have been edited, and some have not. All of the photos were taking using my phone, so the quality isn't superb.

Setting up camp during the late night/early morning hours while it was snowing was quite an experience. Before I went to bed my thermometer said it was 34 degrees. The view from the tent in the morning was awesome.




Hiking through the fog clouds on top of Sassafras Mountain Saturday afternoon.






We have passed many, eaten lunch in some, but this trip marked the first time we ever stayed the night in a trail shelter. This was the Hawk Mountain Shelter.


The temperature never made it above 36 on Saturday, and when I went to bed on Saturday night, my thermometer read 26 from inside the shelter. It was supposed to get into the low 20's that night, so with the 20-30 mph wind gusts, I would say it felt like it was about 10 outside. That meant the snow would still be there on the hike out Sunday morning, and low and behold, it was.

Hiking down Hawk Mountain